Welcome
to the Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy. We're going to examine all the ways your guitar's sound can take shape
through design and hardware.

First, I'd like to break down all of the most common body styles of
electric guitars and talk about their very noticeable differences.There are many, many variations
of the electric guitar. Science has told us that in order for sound to
be naturally amplified, there needs to be a chamber in which sound can
resonate. Just look at the construction of the ancient amphitheaters, or
the way that the human body has natural resonating chambers that allow
us to use our voices, or a stand-up bass with its large, chambered body
designed to amplify the resonating strings.

Then, our friend technology came along and told us that even with the
resonating chambers that we had designed for our instruments, they
could sound even bigger! With the addition of electronic amplification,
the guitar no longer needed chambering in order to be heard.From its humble beginnings as an experiment in resonance to the
flagship image of rock 'n' roll, the electric guitar has taken many
forms over the years.All of them have their advantages – and their
disadvantages. Every manufacturer has tried its own take on some of the
different body styles, which include hollow body, semi-hollow body, fully solid body electric, and even acoustic electrics. Here, we'll take a look at what exactly those terms mean and what to look for in each.

Hollow body

The original electric guitars were hollow. Well, scratch that – the
original electric Spanish guitars were hollow. Gibson took
the words Electric Spanish and turned them into an acronym – ES. We
commonly refer to these as hollow-body guitars.Nowadays, hollow-body guitars are primarily favored by jazz guitarists for their big, warm sound.
Hollow bodies hardly need anything between the guitar and the amp to
sound full, but there are always exceptions and examples of people using
them outside of their typical application.

Gibson Memphis ES-175 hollow-body guitarFor example, Pat Metheny took his Gibson ES-175 and ran it through
some lush chorus, delays, and compression to create his signature jazz
sound. On the flip side, John McLaughlin plugged his guitar into a
Marshall stack for the wild rock tones heard on records with the Tony
Williams Lifetime and Miles Davis. In fact, Joe Perry of Aerosmith plays
a Gretsch Falcon. The hardest thing to do when playing a hollow-body
guitar through a loud amp, or a hollow body with a dollop of distortion,
is not to get bowled over with feedback.Either way, these guitars are celebrated for their big, full sounds and can be applied to many musical situations.Gretsch White Falcon hollow-body guitar

Solid body

Solid-body guitars were the next step in guitar development, with Leo Fender creating a modest instrument called the Broadcaster,
which was then rebranded as the Telecaster. The Stratocaster came later
and, in addition to the changes in the pickups, included contours in
the body that made the guitar more streamlined and easier to play while
standing up.Today, the Stratocaster is still the most iconic electric guitar shape;
it's associated with guitar wizard Jimi Hendrix, and many beginners end
up with a Stratocaster-style guitar. Gibson introduced their own line
of solid-body guitars, the considerably swankier Les Paul.Fender Stratocaster solid-body guitar

The primary difference in tone between the solid body and hollow body guitar is the high-end bite
one associates with the solid-body guitar. From the biting rhythm of
guitarist Nile Rodgers to the supersonic leads of Eric Clapton and David
Gilmour, Stratocasters have found favor with so many guitarists because
of their versatility and their timeless tone.But what about the Les Paul devotees like Jimmy Page, Zakk Wylde, and
Bob Marley? Is it possible that the Les Paul is as enduring and
adaptable as the Strat? Um… yes!Each guitar style has its own rich
history of players and possibilities, and with a powerful imagination,
anything is possible. Solid-body guitars are truly the dominant species
of electric guitars for their overall versatility, ability to interact with pedals and amps, and general lack of fussiness.

The Classic Gibson Les Paul solid-body guitar

Semi-hollow body

The final pillar in the temple of electric guitar production is the
semi-hollow guitar. Just as the name suggests, these guitars do have some chambering in the body,
but they aren't completely hollow. In an ideal world, a semi-hollow
guitar will have the biting, singing tone of a solid body guitar, but
can also achieve the same smooth fullness of a solid body. However, that
simply isn't the reality for many semi-hollow bodies.

Ibanez Artcore AS73 semi-hollow-body guitar

Semi-hollow guitars can be seen in the hands of many guitarists who have especially signature sounds.
For example, John Scofield has been playing the same Ibanez AS-200
since 1981! Larry Carlton helped define the sound of the '70s as one of
the top call session guitarists of all time and did it with his Gibson
ES-335 (in fact, Carlton is known as Mr. 335). John Lennon, Gary Clark
Jr., Jack White, Dave Grohl – guitar titans past and present use
semi-hollow guitars.There have been plenty of attempts at different types of semi-hollow
guitars from nearly every guitar manufacturer, and some are more
successful than others. In my experience, even though Gibson does offer a
fairly consistent output, there's still a fair amount of discrepancy
from one instrument to the next, and, as always, I recommend playing a
guitar before passing any judgment on it. But try and be discerning in
your assessment of the guitar – versatility is king, only capable of being knocked off the throne by an absolutely golden, irreplaceable tone. Trust your ears!Epiphone Dot semi-hollow-body guitar

Acoustic-electric

Yamaha A-Series acoustic electric guitar

While the acoustic-electric guitar isn't actually its own body type –
it's simply an acoustic guitar with electric pickups to amplify its
signal (we'll talk about pickups soon!) – it's worth mentioning that
you're almost never going to get a comparable tone to that of a hollow body, or really, any kind of electric guitar. It’s just not built for that, and in fact, it's almost always better if you want that acoustic sound to buy a really resonant acoustic guitar and add a nice sound-hole pickup (like this one) instead.Because any acoustic guitar can be made into an acoustic-electric,
from what I've seen – and this is simply an observation, not a blanket
statement – most of these sacrifice both quality of guitar and quality
of pickup to sell affordable instruments in the name of convenience. So
for the introductory acoustic player, here is my advice: skip the acoustic-electric section and find a plain ol' acoustic guitar that you like.
When the time is right, plenty of companies make a variety of pickups
designed for acoustic guitars, which will give you more options when
selecting a method of amplifying your acoustic.

Elyadeen Anbar is a guitarist, writer, and
educator residing in Los Angeles, CA. He has had the pleasure of
contributing music and production to some of his favorite artists, and
graced stages the world over.